1,000 Site Workers Strike over Safety in Wales – and Win!
About 1,000 building workers walked out of the National Gas Terminal site in Milford Haven in SW Wales in the week 3rd – 10th June. This after a welder passed out at the jetty on this massive job and it was found there was a lack of emergency cover and the time it took to respond to the unconscious worker. The strikers demanded a phone line should be installed at the jetty and the site ambulance improved – and there should be a nurse on duty during night shifts – unfenced holes in the ground should be fenced – and something should be done about the lack of drinking fountains available for the workers.
The site was closed and a safety inspection carried out and workers were told they could go back. But AMICUS and GMB members met and decided not to return to work. Mass meetings [that’s workers’ democracy!] took place after every day to decide whether the workers, and not the HSE, agreed if the site was safe enough to return to work or not. Then on Friday of that week three workers’ safety representatives went onto the site to confirm management assurances had been delivered. They had, and the men went back to work. As one worker said, ‘funny’ it took a strike for these people [in management] to start taking our health and safety seriously. And so say all of us!!
TO STOP THEM ROBBING AND KILLING US – STOP WORK!
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